Walking With Giants (Completed)

Chapter 26

The mourning for Aurum was a silent one.

Everyone was stunned by Aurum's sacrifice, Horus in particular. He had saved their lives. Horus didn't think he could have done that himself, let alone summon the power to hold off Elipse that long.

And so they sat hidden under a small natural overhang a few miles away from the camp, tears streaming down their faces, wiping their cheeks with their dirty and torn sleeves. Ursa, in particular, was crying the hardest, clinging dearly to his beloved Scarlet. Herin stood, motionless, pretending to keep watch for Elipse and her soldiers. He was just looking back towards the place where he almost died. Eon was collapsed in the snow, weeping.

They had never had a casualty of that magnitude.

After a few, stale, timeless hours, Horus stood up, genuine tears leaking from his eyes. "Let's not have Aurum's sacrifice be vain."

He had everybody's attention.

"We need to run as far as we can away from Elipse. We have to escape; regroup. Going in now would be a waste of... Aurum." He was rasping with the tears in his voice. "I didn't know Aurum that well. And I wish I did. He was fearless... he never gave up. More importantly, he never gave up on his friends." Horus reached back for his broadsword and thrust it into the moist soil next to the group. "This place will represent the place where he died to save us." Horus walked away, treating it as an official funeral.

Eon walked up to the sword. Horus couldn't hear what he said, but it sounded a bit like: "...God embrace him." Eon seemed to be creating another sword, one of physical energy, with a green hilt and a silver edge with golden fuller. He stabbed it into the ground right next to Horus' sword and walked away, weeping.

Scarlet cane up next. She whispered a few words, which Horus could not hear, and found a thick branch from a tree on the ground. She used her powers of speed to create enough friction to shape the stick into a sword, and she thrust it into the soil on the left of Horus' sword. She walked off with tears glistening in her eyes.

Herin was next, already holding his broadsword in his hands. Everybody heard what he said. "Why... Why couldn't you have let us fight? Together?" His tears leaked into the snow off his face. "I would have died a hero! With you!" He stabbed the sword maliciously into the snow, and then he began to sob with all of his pent-up emotions since the day of the crash. He quickly trudged away, with his head down.

Cobalt was next. He raised up his talisman, gathering electric energy, and compacted the plasma so insanely hard it turned to a solid sword, glistening with the energy of a hundred thousand volts. Cobalt whispered something that sounded like: "...Rest in peace, my savior..." and stabbed the sword into the sediment on the left side of Herin's sword. He walked away, without tears. But, then again, Cobalt never cried.

Ursa was last. He created a sword from the compact carbon of a few roots, glistening with shards of sediment around it like a beautiful mosaic. He whispered his respects and stabbed it on the right side of all of the swords. "Even though I didn't know you well, you sacrificed yourself for me. I'll never forget you." Ursa took a few steps back, and just stared at the six swords deep in the sediment.

Nobody talked for a long while. They just stood, some crying, some not, but Horus was just looking at the swords deep in the ground...

There should be seven swords. He knew that Aurum was gone, but... he wished that Aurum had been here to... put his own sword in.

A heavy tear fell from Horus' eye.

Horus wished that he could have just killed Yuris when he had the chance. None of this would ever have happened if he was dead! Why couldn't I have just killed him?!